Christ Church (north)

Christ Church in the north

The Evangelical Free Church of Christ in the north of East Frisia was built in 1900 in neo-Gothic style.

history

The beginnings of the Northern Baptist church go back to Johann Carl Cramer (1825–1850). In 1865 the Northern Baptists joined the newly founded Baptist congregation in Jennelt / Hamswehrum . In 1900 the community in Norden was founded and the chapel was built in the same year. Until 1950, a residential building blocked the view of the church from Osterstrasse. After this structure was demolished, a small porch was erected in the 1960s. Since 1957 the building has officially been called the "Christ Church".

The Baptist Congregation, known today as the Evangelical Free Church Community in the North, belongs to the Evangelical Free Church State Association of Baptists in the Northwest and, within the state association, to the regional Ems-Jade Mission working group .

Building description

The gables and the long sides are emphasized by a frieze . There are pointed arch windows on the long sides and the street side . The main entrance leads into a foyer equipped with a cloakroom, which connects the church with the community center, which was added in the 1960s.

The sanitary facilities and an additional youth room are located in the basement under the community hall. All events can be broadcast into the community hall with images and sound. It also serves as a parent-child room during the service. In the extension behind the church, which is on the Kleine Hinterlohne and served as a pastor's apartment until 1984, the kitchen and other group rooms are now housed after extensive renovations. The so-called Kinderarche uses one of the rooms and also the playground three days a week to look after children of pre-kindergarten age.

Interior

Rohlfs organ from 1799

The interior has a simple design and is closed off by a wooden barrel vault supported by consoles. When you enter the church, the first thing you see is a wrought-iron cross, which consists of two slightly offset longitudinal and transverse beams. This motif can also be found in the wrought-iron railing that surrounds the baptistery below the cross . On the baptistery, which is now covered for lack of space, is the communion table from the 1960s . To the right of the sacrament table is the pulpit and to the left is a grand piano that accompanies part of the Sunday church chant. A door let into the front wall leads into the so-called “board room ”, which is also used as a changing room for baptisms . The original pews were replaced by seating in 2005.

At the rear of the church there is a gallery on which the historic organ of the Christ Church has found its place. It was built between 1796 and 1799 by Johann Gottfried Rohlfs in the baroque tradition for the Mennonite Church in the north . In 1901 the instrument was sold to the Baptist church and installed on the gallery. Today the work has eleven stops on two manuals and pedal , three of which are still original. In 1984 and 1998 Bartelt Immer carried out a renovation with a reconstruction of individual registers.